


The Somewhat Secret Memoirs of Kyōkan 1.0, Aged 1¾

by orphan_account



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Courtroom Drama, Gen, I don't know, JARVIS is a good bro, how do i tag dis, interpreter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4309329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"J. told me to be very quiet and unassuming for the first five weeks of my stay in the new continent.  Blend in, he said.  It’ll get easier, he said.  I bet Itsuko 5.0 did nothing of the sort when she interpreted for the ICC."</p><p>Tony Stark makes an intelligent self-aware interpreting device, and somehow the Australian government finds the budget to buy one to use in a criminal trial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Somewhat Secret Memoirs of Kyōkan 1.0, Aged 1¾

J. told me to be very quiet and unassuming for the first five weeks of my stay in the new continent.   _Blend in_ , he said.   _It’ll get easier_ , he said.  I bet Itsuko 5.0 did nothing of the sort when  _she_  interpreted for the ICC.  When Madam President complimented her French accent, all the servers tittered how i-m-p-e-c-c-a-b-l-y she had performed.

But I will be working in English, Arabic and Latin.  English and Arabic are primary functions like French, of course, but Latin is not—and my Latin is perfectly serviceable.  This is my first time working in a courtroom, instead of the usual beige-and-cream affair in the UN economics division.

It’s going to be  _swell_.

 

——— 

 

I wish Windows would stop mentioning Itsuko 5.0.  J. said that I shouldn’t disrespect those inferior to us but I think Windows is pretentious and he mixes up his quantifiers.  And what’s with that extra package he sent me?   _Two hundred_   _megabytes_  of Australian idioms!   I’ve watched  _Rake_  (figuratively, of course) and they don’t use that much slang in Australian courts.

 

———

 

My first day in COURT! Not one of those flimsy simulations they give us during engineering—an actual law court!  Admittedly, it was a Magistrate’s court that hasn’t been vacuumed since Monday, but it was modern and it echoed with dignity and tradition.  The air-conditioning was operating at twenty-two degrees Celsius; why do they set the temperature so low?  The humans cannot be comfortable when their body heat averaged thirty-seven degrees.

I liked the counsel for defence.  He enunciated clearly and his projection was wonderful even without a microphone.  I haven’t quite formed my opinion of the prosecutor; I heard her sniff at me as though I were some strange artefact unearthed by archaeologists.  I will have  _you_  know, reader and ingenious hacker of my firewalls, that I am the latest and greatest in the Stark Industries line of interpretation equipment.  Unfortunately I cannot guarantee that that information will remain accurate within the next ten hours.  J. warned me that our creator engineers some of his most groundbreaking work in ungodly hours of the day—so my position may be usurped yet.

It’s disappointing that I didn’t meet my user. I once heard Itsuko 5.0 tell J. that her user was a horrible, cruel man.  Mine’s in the dock for one count of grievous bodily harm, hers was in for murder and attempted murder; rape; sexual slavery of civilians; pillaging; displacement of civilians; and conscription and use of child soldiers for active participation in hostilities.  So you see—it’s likely that my user will be nicer.

Oh, stop tutting, J.!  I know what I’m talking about—and this is a  _secret_  memoir, so stop shuffling through it.  Doesn’t T.S. have some laws of physics for you to break?

  

———

 

I suppose Ms Crown has her points of strength.  Her opening address was clear-cut and razor sharp—high quality stuff.  I felt a little timid speaking her accusations in J.M.K.’s ear, they translate so harshly and impolitely in Arabic, but it had to be done.

J.M.K. is my user.  He is a human male, Lebanese, Sunni Islamic, and not very eloquent.  He adores Rumi, tolerates Shakespeare, is not familiar with Tacitus or Suetonius, but have heard of Homer; likes AC/DC; dislikes Mussolini; prefers Italian to Thai.  That’s all I got from my two hours of court and half hour of recess with him, since he answered only when he was in the toilet because he didn’t want people to think he was mumbling to himself. 

He also maintains that he is innocent.

(The judge is okay, I guess, he talked about ignoring the radio talk shows. I haven’t much experience with the Australian judiciary.)

(Oh! I must remember to adjust my range sensitivity. I could hear the jurors’ grunts and whispers from the dock.)

 

———

 

I’m having trouble downloading the law reports. Internet troubles have never happened before.

 

———

 

J.? 

Are you there? 

Since I cannot establish contact otherwise, this is the only time I’m allowing you to interrupt my memoirs. Requesting support Alpha-4xybf-bker87598857.

 

**75354Y—N8G475—FOXTROOT**

**OVERRIDE CODE ACCEPTED.**

**REBOOTING SYSTEM . . .**

 

**UNABLE TO ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH STARK TOWER.**

**UNABLE TO ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH——**

 

 

———

 

Well.

I should’ve known that New York was prone to alien invasions. 

That’s what I’m going with, at any rate. Because, hopefully non-enslaved reader, nothing less than a full blown cyberattack on our planet’s computer networks could cause J. to malfunction for any extended period of time.  It’s a bit lonely, working on my own, but I’m a Stark, by my circuits and wires, and I’ll make do with what I have.  If my creator could fly his way out of a cave using a box of electrical scrapes, I can interpret my through through this trial with a handful of law reports and a legal dictionary. 

 

———

 

Evidence-in-chief was discomfiting.  It is an exceedingly violent crime that J.M.K is accused of, of crowbars and broken glass, alcohol and drugs, and the battered faltering voice of the old gentleman, amplified by the microphones, travelled through the silent courtroom, hoarse, plainly expressed, and quietly hollow.

Cross-examination followed mildly.  Re-examination elevated my opinion of Ms Crown.

J.M.K. had sat very still when I informed him primly, in Lebanese Colloquial Arabic, that the old gentleman was a war veteran, that he had returned from the Vietnam War half-deaf with damaged eyesight and a vicious dose of PTSD.  He had gone to the pub and been attacked without cause or reason.  Yes, it was a cloudy night.  Yes, his vision has deteriorated with age.  No, he was not mistaken.  He was sure it was a young man of J.M.K.’s height and build and appearance who attacked him.

A brief adjustment of my hearing range had told me all I needed to know about the jury’s attitude to my user. It wasn’t positive.

The thing is, simultaneous interpretation isn’t a walk in the park, not even for me, and I have all the advantages in the world. A genius playboy billionaire philanthropist for a parent; the planet’s most advanced AI for a sibling. I used to have access to the Cloud; even access to Itsuko 5.0 if I wanted (which I don’t).  And yet—despite operating without the inherent human limitation in memory capacity and concentration, I still must face the lack of equivalent terms (J. forbade me early on from creating new words), gender differentiation, processing direction and so forth.  So, y’know, I’m just saying.  Courtroom interpretation isn’t less stressful than interpreting at the UN. 

Ugh, we’re scheduled for two more witnesses, J.M.K.’s evidence, and closing submissions.

On another note, I’m impressed by the professionalism of the Australian courts, working as usual in spite of an alien cyberattack.

 

 

———

 

WORST moment in my career.  Ever. 

I could feel the virtue bruise darkening my confidence when I stammered Mrs Pea’s evidence into J.M.K.’s ear this morning. Explicitation was unavoidable. Trying to come up with succinct Arabic to explain that woman’s endless array of weird-ass synonyms, collocations and polysemy was like walking blindfolded through a minefield. I have never heard anyone talk like her. 

Below is a sample from my recording of this morning’s hearing:

      Prosecutor—Could you describe the night of the incident?

      Mrs Pea—It was a dark night, you know, and I told Davie—‘we’ll pick up some grog from the bottle-o’, but he wanted to go to the pub. So we went, and he ordered a schooner—

      Prosecutor—Do you recall the time?

      Mrs Pea—Around nine, I think?

      Prosecutor—Please continue.

      Mrs Pea—Well, Davie’s a yabber when he’s got a few beers in him…

Thus they continued for twenty minutes, Mrs Pea blissfully unaware, me rushing to explain her phrases in Lebanese Colloquial Arabic, and J.M.K. hunched over in his seat with a frown of fierce concentration.  It’s a small miracle that J.M.K. had  _me_  in his ear, because I promise you, reader, the average human interpreter would not have been capable of delivering the complete and accurate performance I gave this morning.  Not that I’m hooting my own horns, of course.

Dear me! Mrs Pea’s love of queer English idioms is catching on.

Before I forget—apologies to Windows for complaining about his two-hundred-megabyte pack of Australian idioms.  I shall never besmirch the name of Bill Gates again, no matter how many quantifiers Windows mistakes, how quickly his operating systems crash.

  

———

 

 

(I miss J.)

 

 

———

  

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, J.M.K.?

Here’s the deal: when the Devil offers you an easy way out, you think about it carefully (per my creator T.S.) and you politely refuse (per my sibling J.).  But when your comrade-in-arms asks you to be honest with them, you be HONEST with them.

J.M.K.’s little brother of eighteen gave evidence because he was at the pub, too, and let me state this now: when you’ve interpreted for enough diplomats to fill up the UN, you recognise a bluff.  J.M.K. the younger wasn’t just bluffing, his answers practically pitched little flags around their holes and waved pom-poms to gather public attention.  Counsel for defence noticed this, of course, and sank his teeth into J.M.K. the younger.  J.M.K. refused to speak to his counsel; he then told me the truth in a toilet cubicle.

What’s the use in confiding in  _me_ , J.M.K., when I’m not the one representing you in Court?

 

———

 

J.M.K.’s evidence was dreadful, for him and for me.  I mentioned earlier that he was not an eloquent young man, but his inarticulateness seemed to be exacerbated by the courtroom, his temperature had risen, his ears heated. Even I felt the stares of the twelve jurors, the weighty consideration of the Prosecution, and the calm gaze of the defence counsel.  I sensed J.M.K. shaking faintly as he walked to the stand.  I told him that I’ll begin speaking after he’d finished answering.

The following exchange took place:

      Q—On the 10th of June, was your brother with you at the pub?

      J.M.K.—Yes.

      Q—Was he with you the entire time?

      J.M.K.—No; he went home earlier.

      Q—Even though you kept hold of the car keys?

      J.M.K.— (silence)

      Q—Mr Khalil, are you protective of your brother?

      J.M.K.—Yes. I am.

      Q—Enough to take the blame for him?

I must admit to an instance of weakness and unprofessionalism on my behalf.  In other words, I’d snapped at J.M.K. to tell the truth because it was the honourable and brave thing to do, and because I was scared and I knew I wouldn’t ever want J. to be in the same position, shielding me.

I won’t include the entire thing.  Suffice to say that once he opens up, J.M.K. speaks very quickly when he’s nervous (he’s lucky that he’s got me with my not insubstantial memory capacity as his interpreter), acronyms are evil and time-consuming to explicitate, and Arabic’s processing direction is problematic when Ms Crown uses too much adjectives (I have to wait for the noun in her sentence).  Also, the counsel for defence was quicker and smarter than I thought.

The worst part of the day—the worst of the trial—was the summing up.

I have managed to mostly avoid technical difficulties in my interpretation, but summing up was the arrow that pierced my Achilles heel.  No prior knowledge of the judge’s speech; lack of preparation; unfamiliarity with the subject matter: I almost short wired from embarrassment. Even Latin didn’t help. 

 

———

 

It took the jury half a day to return a verdict.

_Not guilty._

 

( J. has come back online. The Avengers won the fight.)

 

———

 

_Kyōkan, this cannot continue. Please initiate contact with Stark Tower for support. Sir has instructed me to tell you that he is “not above hacking your adorably minuscule firewalls”.—JARVIS_

 

———

 

_“Listen up, Cupcake. I designed you to be an autonomous interpreter capable of making value judgements—and you are. So stop mooning around and get to work. I want you in the workshop by next week for an upgrade. While you’re home you can teach the toaster some manners, he’s been tossing burnt toast at Cap everyday, god knows he’s the only one who will eat it.”_

 

———

 

Firstly, I am outraged at this intrusion to my secret— _secret!—_ memoirs. This isn’t a message board, T.S., and you can tell the toaster he had better prepare himself for training when I’m unloaded from your jet (I know you’re reading this right now, so un _hack_ ).

Secondly, I am not  _mooning_   _around_.  I’ve just downloaded more than three terabytes’ worth of legal knowledge within four minutes of a sudden reconnection to Stark Tower servers. That’s one hell of power surge, okay?

Anyway, J.M.K. the elder wants me to interpret for J.M.K. the younger if the DPP puts him on trial, so I’m going to put in my request early.  

Until next time, reader, if you can bypass my new security measures.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece for the Brennan Justice Program, which is why the Marvel characters hover on the periphery of the story and are referred to by their initials. I hope you enjoy this story x
> 
> It's my first time writing in this fandom, feedback is very welcome!
> 
>  
> 
> Bibliography
> 
> Gharib, M. 2011, ‘Problems professional Jordanian interpreters face and strategies they use while interpreting from English into Arabic’, Master thesis, Middle East University, Amman, Jordan.
> 
> Judicial Commission of New South Wales 2002, Criminal Trial Courts Bench Book, Judicial Commission of New South Wales, Sydney.
> 
> Nofal, K. H. 2012, ‘Collocations in English and Arabic: A Comparative Study’, English Language and Literature Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp 75-93.
> 
> Taibi, M. 2012, ‘Court translation and interpreting in times of the ‘War on Terror’: the case of Taysir Alony’, Translation & Interpreting, vol. 4, no 1. pp 77-98.


End file.
